Amy Couch, , Pursuing Truth with Anjan Chakravartty(new professor at Univ. of Miami) “The thing I’m most unsure about is what response we will get, in a society that is so polarized in so many ways, but I’m hopeful that everyone, whatever their personal view of the Chair for the Study of Atheism, Humanism, and Secular Ethics, will join me in thinking that the ideal of excellent education and research is crucial to our wellbeing as a society and to our collective future.”read
Bradford Richardson Atheists slam Trump for referencing only Christianity at prayer breakfast read
, The Improbable Friendship That Shaped a Generation of Literary Scholarship
Lionel Trilling and Jacques Barzun seemed an intellectual odd couple. What made their relationship last?Colin Marshall, An Animated Introduction to Epicurus and His Answer to the Ancient Question: What Makes Us Happy? watch
Julian Baggini on Steven Pinker “In a work of such breadth and scope, small lapses like this are inevitable, but are far outweighed by the clarity, force and evidential weight of his central arguments.” read
Michelle Goldberg int. on Freethought Matters (28m) watch
Jay Cornell, Techno-Optimism: The World’s Transformation Since the Industrial Revolution (Transhumanism?) read
Michael Shermer, Heavens on Earth “For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, and though no one has ever returned from such a place to report what it is really like—or that it even exists—today science and technology are being used to try to make it happen in our lifetime. From radical life extension to cryonic suspension to mind uploading, Shermer considers how realistic these attempts are from a proper skeptical perspective.” read
Julie Zauzmer, The complicated history of ‘In God We Trust’ and other examples Trump gives of American religion read
Isabel Fattal, How Should Atheism Be Taught? read
Jennifer Szalai, Steven Pinker Wants You to Know Humanity Is Doing Fine. Just Don’t Ask About Individual Humans. “There’s a noble kernel to Pinker’s project. He wants to discourage the kind of fatalism that leads people to think the only way forward is to tear everything down. But he seems surprisingly blind to how he fuels such fatalism by playing to the worst stereotype of the enlightened cosmopolitan: disdainful and condescending — sympathetic to humanity in the abstract but impervious to the suffering of actual human beings.” readDavid Breeden, Socbots and the Three Poisons “Ah, American politics. Reminds me of the “three poisons” in Buddhism: anger, greed, and delusion. “ readClay Farris Naff, Enlightenment Wow: The Humanist Interview with Steven Pinker “I wonder whether you have plans to push these ideas out into the prevailing culture by other means.Pinker: I certainly do. I’m participating in a large number of podcasts and web interviews. I endorse websites such as Our World in Data, Human Progress, and Gapminder, which provide interactive graphics that can tell a story in a way that sentences can’t. I give lectures that are distributed on the web. So I’m very much immersed in the new universe of electronic media.”. Why is Google/YouTube taking down these videos and threatening the sites that post them? readAmanda Marcotte and Alternet, Atheism’s shocking woman problem: What’s behind the misogyny of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris? (issues raised in this 2014 post cvontinue to be debated) read
AEU Gun Control Statement readDavid Breeden, Gods, Guns, and Gut Emotions ‘“Thoughts and prayers” is fast becoming the “let them eat cake” of our era. Even those who believe that prayer has some efficacy are finding the phrase risible in the face of constant mass shootings.’ ‘read

Meet the American Humanist Association’s new Education Assistant, Emily Newman read
Landon Schnabel and Sean Bock, The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research “If it is primarily moderate religionists and those with loose ties to their religions driving the decline in average American religiosity, then we may be seeing more of a polarization of religion than a pattern consistent with the secularization thesis.” read
Michael Shermer’s new book, Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia. (several videos) watch
Free Inquiry has published, in 3 issues, papers from a symposium Fight for Our Philosophy. Key terms are scientific and naturalistic and academic . Introductions by Judy Walker and Tom Flynn summarize the papers. readreadread
Michael Shermer, Science Denial versus Science Pleasure “In other words, valuing science for pure pleasure is more of a bulwark against the politicization of science than facts alone.” readHemant Mehta, What’s the Main Source of Global Conflict? Survey Says: “Religious Beliefs” read
“The Greatest Showman”: A Nickell-odeon Review (Barnum was a Universalist) read
Rob Brotherton, Suspicious Minds read
Online Books by Free Religious Association (Boston Mass.) read
Leigh Eric Schmidt, Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in a Godly Nation read
Hemant Mehta, Atheists Support Abortion Rights More Than Any Other Group (Except One…) readMichael Shermer, Science Denial versus Science Pleasure read
David Breeden Good Cat, Bad Person: the Human Intuition of Being “Wrong” read
FFRF, The (further) rise of Christian nationalism by Michelle Goldberg read
Rick Snedeker. Why Do We Believe in the Unbelievable? It’s Natural read
Michael Shermer, For the Love of Science “That liberals are just as guilty of antiscience bias comports more with accounts of humans chomping canines, and yet those on the left are just as skeptical of well-established science when findings clash with their political ideologies, such as with GMOs, nuclear power, genetic engineering and evolutionary psychology—skepticism of the last I call “cognitive creationism” for its endorsement of a blank-slate model of the mind in which natural selection operated on humans only from the neck down.” read

Gordon Pennycook, Robert M. Ross, Derek J. Koehler, Jonathan A. Fugelsang, Atheists and Agnostics Are More Reflective than Religious Believers: Four Empirical Studies and a Meta-Analysis readNeil Carter, Lies the Church Told Us About Sex readJames Croft, In Art, What We Like and What Is Good are Different read
Maria Popova, Walt Whitman on What Makes Life Worth Living “He recorded these reflections in Specimen Days (public library) — the sublime collection of prose fragments, letters, and journal entries that gave us Whitman on the wisdom of trees and music as the profoundest expression of nature” WW: “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on — have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear — what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.” ….. read
Bart Ehrman (intro Dan Barker) on Bible (59m) watch
Annie Laurie Gaylor on ending of FFRR’s year )7m) watchMano Singham, The Cornel West-Ta-Nehisi Coates feud and the role of intellectuals read
Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee? The Stoics and Existentialists agree on the answer readDavid Breeden, What’s Miraculous read

Jack Meserve, How a Skeptic Became a Stoic (Massimo Pigliucci) read
Trav Mamone, If the World Was Ending, What Would Your Last Message Be? read
Andrew Copson addresses Parliament’s human rights committee about free speech on campus read
Humanists celebrate end of NHS homeopathy prescriptions in England readDale McGowan,, Santa Claus – The Ultimate Dry Run “By letting our kids participate in the Santa myth and find their own way out of it through skeptical inquiry, we give them a priceless opportunity to see a mass cultural illusion first from the inside, then from the outside.{ read
James Croft int. on podcast listenGreta Christina, History Has its Eyes on Us “Let’s be the people we admire. Let’s make history proud of us.” read
UK, National Secular Society read
IHEU, Secularism ‘regressing on a global scale’, says report (link to important 2017 world report) read
Institute of Arts and Ideas, Philosophy for our Times. A series of debates on religions. Search and watch watchDavid Breeden,, Righteousness Fatigue read
J. H. McKenna, Believe One Miracle And You’ve No Excuse For Disbelieving All Other Miracles read
Adam Roberts, Arthur C Clarke at 100: still the king of science fiction read
When their community needed help, the SSA chapter in Puerto Rico was there with food, help, and hugs. read
Alice Calaprice, Albert Einstein, the Humanitarian In her foreward to this bok[The Cosmic View of Albert Einstein (Sterling Publishing, 2013 by Walt Martin and Magda Ott] “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” In this way, Einstein was unifying science and religion, and referred to himself as a “deeply religious nonbeliever. Moreover, being open-minded and inclusive in his worldview, he found Jesus, Buddha, and Moses equally compelling as prophets.” read
Demian Wheeler on religious naturalism watch
Unitarian Universalist Statement on Economic Inequity read

Jack Meserve, How a Skeptic Became a Stoic (Massimo Pigliucci) read
Trav Mamone, If the World Was Ending, What Would Your Last Message Be? read
Andrew Copson addresses Parliament’s human rights committee about free speech on campus read
Humanists celebrate end of NHS homeopathy prescriptions in England readDale McGowan,, Santa Claus – The Ultimate Dry Run “By letting our kids participate in the Santa myth and find their own way out of it through skeptical inquiry, we give them a priceless opportunity to see a mass cultural illusion first from the inside, then from the outside.{ read
James Croft int. on podcast listenGreta Christina, History Has its Eyes on Us “Let’s be the people we admire. Let’s make history proud of us.” read
UK, National Secular Society read
IHEU, Secularism ‘regressing on a global scale’, says report (link to important 2017 world report) read
Institute of Arts and Ideas, Philosophy for our Times. A series of debates on religions. Search and watch watchDavid Breeden,, Righteousness Fatigue read
J. H. McKenna, Believe One Miracle And You’ve No Excuse For Disbelieving All Other Miracles read
Adam Roberts, Arthur C Clarke at 100: still the king of science fiction read
When their community needed help, the SSA chapter in Puerto Rico was there with food, help, and hugs. read
Alice Calaprice, Albert Einstein, the Humanitarian In her foreward to this bok[The Cosmic View of Albert Einstein (Sterling Publishing, 2013 by Walt Martin and Magda Ott] “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.” In this way, Einstein was unifying science and religion, and referred to himself as a “deeply religious nonbeliever. Moreover, being open-minded and inclusive in his worldview, he found Jesus, Buddha, and Moses equally compelling as prophets.” read
Demian Wheeler on religious naturalism watch
Unitarian Universalist Statement on Economic Inequity read

ALAIN DE BOTTON ON FREE WILL (5m) listen
Ethical Culture Journal October 2017 readGregory A. Smith, A growing share of Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral readRoy Speckhardt, The Religious Right Is Selling Its Soul read
David Niose, Boy Scouts Still Shut the Door on Some Kids readSincere Kirabo, Fostering Inclusive Humanism at FERAL readElizabeth O’Casey, Where there is state religion, there is less freedom read
Hackney History of Charles Bradlaugh readDavid Breeden, Reasons for Breaking a Windshield read
Barb Lutz, Take it from me: How not to handle military condolences calls readHemant Mehta,, Rep. Jared Huffman Announces He’s a Humanist: “I Don’t Believe in God” readHumanist Ring Jennifer Hancock’s sites
Chris Sloggett, ‘Life of Brian,’ 38 Years On: De Facto Blasphemy is Alive and Well readRecovering from Religion Site, podcastsDavid Breeden,The Virtue of Not Being Above Average read
Hemant Mehta. Does Your Church Have Secrets? FaithLeaks Wants To Know All About Them read
Hemant Mehta, Far Too Many Americans Consider Themselves “Spiritual But Not Religious” “It’s a strange euphemism. It’s meaningless, yet worthy of mockery.: read
Julian Baggini, I still love Kierkegaard read
Vikram Zutshi, In Praise of Blasphemy read
Gregory A. Smith, A growing share of Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral readDennis Rasmussen, He died as he lived: David Hume, philosopher and infidel readJennifer Bardi, Gamm On: The Humanist Interview with Philanthropist Gordon Gamm read
David Breeden,Yes, But What Is Humanism? read
Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community (UUJEC) read
Michael Shermer, Scientific Naturalism: A Manifesto for Enlightenment Humanism read
SOPHIE ELMHIRST, Philip Pullman Returns to His Fantasy World read
Religious Naturalism and Its Place in the Family of Religions read
. How Kurt Vonnegut Found His Voice and His Themes read
Michael Shermer, Why Skepticism Is the Right Approach to the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia readDavid Breeden, Marcus Aurelius, from Exhortations to Himself read

Philip Pullman int. by Peter Jukes. “Nearly all the influences Pullman has cited so far have a religious background, and so, inverting Blake’s comment on Milton, I ask him: ‘Aren’t you really of the believer’s party without knowing it?’ He’s amused by the thought. ‘I probably am,’ he says. ‘I’m religious, but I’m an atheist. I think religious questions are the big questions. Where did we come from? What is life about? What is evil? Those are questions I do think about.’” read
Reasons to Believe, Michael Shermer+ (1h 2 m) watch
The Fight for our Philosophy is a Council for Secular Humanism symposium appearing in Free Inquiry/ Part 2 (of 3) is in Oct.Nov. issue. Many essential issues for humanists discussed here. See current introductions by Judy Walker and Tom Flynn. readread
‘Is religion dying out in Britain?’ Andrew Copson on Sunday Morning Live (18m) watch
Dean Burnett, Why religious belief isn’t a delusion – in psychological terms, at least “Well, it shouldn’t be, because as they say, “You talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.” That’s a line from the TV show House MD, delivered by the eponymous acerbic medic played by Hugh Laurie.” read
Unbelievable? Can secularism save the West? Peter Hitchens & Andrew Copson (1h 22m) watch
JULIAN BAGGINI, Truth? It’s not just about the facts “At the same time, what is important about the truth is always relative to the knower. The mathematician, the scientist, the artist, the historian and the religious believer are not always concerned with the same truths or the same aspects of truth. Truth is not relative, but we relate to it in innumerable ways.” readrjosephhoffmann, Moral Outrage read
link to discussion guide for Anthony Pinn’s When Colorblindness Isn’t The Answer readJulian Baggini, , The triage of truth: do not take expert opinion lying down “This triage gives us a procedure but no algorithm. It does not dispense with the need to make judgments, it simply provides a framework to help us do so.” read
Joe Chuman, Ethical Culture Beyond Belief and Humanism’s,Farther Reaches (40m) watch
Gleb Tsipursky, Matching Challenge watchAmy Couch, , Happy. Healthy. Heathen. An Interview with Recovering from Religion’s Gayle Jordan read
David Niose, Ignorance Isn’t Bliss—It’s Frightening readDonald A. Collins , Bannon tells the secular truth about religious perfidy read
Dean Burnett, Why aren’t religious views classed as delusions? Religious beliefs are typically incompatible with scientific evidence and observable reality, but aren’t considered to be delusions. Why not? readTim Denning, My Incredibly Simple Guide To Stoicism — Learn Wisdom You Can Practically Use read
NOAM CHOMSKY – NEW ATHEISTS, ISLAMOPHOBIA, AND THE WAR ON TERROR watch
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) searchable site read
Religion Vs Atheism | Philosophy Tube watch
Steven Pinker: The Elephant, the Emperor, and the Matzo Ball (2016 43m) watch
Michael Shermer rev. Sapolsky read

Robyn Blumner, Religion Is An Empirical Question –– Finally see Inquiry editorial by president/CEO of Center for Inquiry. ‘Even if we acknowledge some psychological benefits, religion is a costly exercise for individuals and groups.” read

Josh Jones, An Animated Introduction to Stoicism, the Ancient Greek Philosophy That Lets You Lead a Happy, Fulfilling Life watch

Jason Gots, Richard Dawkins – Red in Tooth and Claw – Think Again – a Big Think Podcast #112 “In this episode, which Dawkins described as “one of the best interviews I have ever had,” Richard and Jason talk about whether pescatarianism makes any sense, where morality should come from (since, as Hume says, “you can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’), the greatness of Christopher Hitchens, and the evils of nationalism. watchHigh demand for non-religious pastoral care “Our answer to this problem has been the Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network” read
The Humanist Interview with Philanthropist Gordon Gamm )Jennifer Bardi) “…growing up Jewish at a time shortly after the Holocaust, I think there was a lot of emphasis on critical thinking and on accepting the fact that we were the minority in a majority Christian nation, which meant that we had to think independently about morality.” read
Amy Couch, Can Good be Good if Nobody Knows It? readLuis Granados, Rules Are focr Schmucks: The Rodney Dangerfield of Religions readMeghan Hamilton, Clarifying Humanism through the Haze of Equivocation “Humanism is good without a god. Humanism is doing good without a god. Humanism means the progression of society, of humanity, and of people as individuals” readJoseph Blankholm, Atheists in the Pantheon “If we tell their story another way, nonbelievers become a very strange thing: a disavowed tradition in American thought that looks a lot like a religious tradition of its own. Nonbelievers appear to be a believing minority whose beliefs are so antithetical to the hegemonic Christian culture that they are illegible as beliefs and can only be seen as the antithesis of belief itself. Perhaps it’s time we gave atheists a place in the pantheon.” read
Alex J. O’Connor, So Much for a Finely Tuned Universe (Hemant Mehta,) watchcenterforinquiry.net, What Does Secular Humanism Have to Say about the Hate in Charlottesville? readThomas MacMillan, Everyone’s Suspicious of Atheists — Even Other Atheists. Studies by Will Gervaid, Joseph Baker read

Omar Baddar, Challenge Sam Harris for His Bigoted Statements and Like Any Cult Leader, He’ll Say You Don’t Understand HimreadFrances Dinkelspiel, KPFA cancels Richard Dawkins’ speech because of his tweets about Islam read
National Review pronounces the death of New Atheism readJoan Reisman-Brill, The Humanist Dilemma: Is there Space for Any Supernaturalism in the Humanist Circle? readJennifer Bardi, Phoning It In for the Family? Researchers suggest it may better to make a slow and subtle break from the religion of your parents readMeredith Thompson, What Are “Ag-Gag” Laws and Why Should Humanists Oppose Them? readJames Croft, “The Experience of God” Review – Chapter Three, Part One readrobertmprice, Hallucinating the Archetypes read
Darwin’s importance (DONALD TRUMP AND THE COMING FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE (1h 8m) watch
Michael Shermer, Scientific Naturalism: A Manifesto for Enlightenment Humanism readElizabeth O’Casey, Humanists, religious leaders and the UN launch Beirut Declaration on combating human rights abuse read
Jeremy Lent, The dangerous delusions of Richard Dawkins readDavid Breeden, #Epicurus and Atomic Moderation read
‘Atheist’ Gene Roddenberry’s ‘Star Trek’ Franchise Forbids The Word ‘God’: Is New ‘Discovery’ Anti-Religion? readNeil Carter, Why Losing God Hits Some of Us Harder read
Secular Elected Officials read
A.M. Gittlitz, ‘Make It So’: ‘Star Trek’ and Its Debt to Revolutionary Socialism readDavid Breeden, The Danger is in Not Being You read

Gleb Tsipursky, Toward a Post-Lies Future read
The 2017-2018 Humanist Service Corps team is in place read
Landscapes of Mind A Conversation with Kevin Kelly (with Sam Harris) watch
Fred Edwords, Why Religious Education Is Needed in Public Schools readJames Croft, If You’re Not for Racial Justice, You’re Not a Humanist readGleb Tsipursky, Being A Weird American on Independence Day read
The Politics of Emergency A Conversation with Fareed Zakaria (Sam Harris) watch
Elias Leight, Yoko Ono Will Receive Songwriting Credit on John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ readJohn Scales Avery, Henry David Thoreau, We Need Your Voice Today! read
Leaving Islam A Conversation with Sarah Haider (Sam Harris) watch
What is Technology Doing to Us? (Tristan Harris with Sam Harris) watch
Beauty and Terror A Conversation with Lawrence Krauss (Sam Harris) watch
Mikki Morrissette , Being known versus knowing read
Maria Popova, Erich Fromm’s 6 Rules of Listening: The Great Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist on the Art of Unselfish Understanding readValerie Tarico, Does Christianity Make An Idol Out of the Human Mind? read
Barna, Meet the “Spiritual but Not Religious” read